


Halved

by khakis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Fluff and Smut, M/M, Sad Harry, tbh i don't know how else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:36:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khakis/pseuds/khakis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>harry finds louis, and things make less and more sense then they ever have.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halved

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. of which there are probably several.  
> this was the first fic i wrote, so there's that.
> 
>  
> 
> only love is all maroon/ lapping lakes like leery loons/ leaving rope burns, reddish ruse

**Now**

Sometimes, as he drifts in and out of a tentative consciousness, Harry can remember a time before Louis. If he lets his eyes slide out of focus, tugs coaxingly on the smeared, blurry edges that hang just out of sight in the corners of his eyes, he can snag the memories until all at once they slide down and settle out, rippling like little ridges of lake water. But he isn’t particularly sure he likes doing it. These memories run with crackles down the middle, scratches on the tape, lacking the sharp relief that his more recent recollections are thrown into under the supervision of Louis’ dazzling grin. In fact, Harry realizes now, his life can be divided cleanly in two, a halved sort of existence defined in terms of Before and After Louis.

Occasionally the thought occurs to him that really, it is as if he has lived two separate lives entirely. He knows he became a wholly different person upon Louis’ loud and gangly entrance, tripping in from stage left like the cacophony he is. But that kind of admission is hard, and Harry still wants to believe that he can exist on his own, not feel as though he has a vital organ operating outside of his own body. Or, more importantly, he wants to believe that Louis can do the same, because it matters now. Or it will matter soon, this particular kind of independence.

Sometimes, Harry can remember that time before Louis. Sometimes, he’d rather not. He closes his eyes and lets Louis’ face take up the whole screen behind his eyelids, steady, warm, unflinching. Sometimes.

**Before**

That day, although Harry didn’t know it yet, he would find two important things.

He had discovered very quickly that the problem with living alone was, in fact, living alone. Alone is fun, lonely is not so much. And knowing he had no other options was the worst. The flat was tiny, a room with a sink and a stovetop and a fridge and a mattress and a conglomeration of things that Harry had carried around with him for a long time: a ratty footie duffle from a primary school he had never heard of, stuffed full of his frayed tees and three pairs of underwear, four unmarked CDs from the box in the back of his mom’s closet (never listened to, he’d much rather imagine what could be on them then know for sure), a stack of photographs, worn on the edges from his thumbing through them - in the dark, because he knew the intricacies of what was printed on them by heart.

Dawn was his favorite time to be in the flat, so he’d been trying to be other places the rest of the time. He wandered at night, peering into windows and laying down in the middle of deserted roads and during the day visiting chip shops and charming his way into all sorts of things. He knew he could get meals with the crook of a half smile, a place to spend the night (and sometimes some action to accompany his lodgings) with a carefully placed hand and the drawling of a name. He was craving a different sort of attention though, a kind he could believe in, one he hadn’t conned his way into with his eyelashes and bruised mouth and inherent understanding of what those within a few feet of him most wanted.

That day, though, Harry had been awake in his room for a long time. It was dawn, finally, and some of the dinginess of the flat disappeared, some of the emptiness seemed to fill up in the half-light. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep, because he never had been to begin with. He was pretty sure he was breaking some law of physics by the mere fact that he was able to still be awake and walking and functioning given the amount of sleep he hadn’t had for months on end, but there weren’t even bags under his eyes. Maybe a diet of tea and vaguely satisfying sex was a cure-all. Either way, sleep was not on the agenda for the day, so Harry got up, snatching his wallet from yesterday’s pants and meandering down the stairs to the little bread shop below. He wasn’t really hungry, but the owner had taken pity on him and he ate a flaky croissant under her watchful eye. He thought about how the word “croissant” tastes just like the pastry itself.

Almost immediately after leaving the shop, Harry found Clive. The cat was huddled partway behind a trash bin, and when Harry caught sight of it he didn’t even realize it was an animal at first, until it meowed and Harry was suddenly struck by the knowledge that this cat was, in fact, his. He was wary, of course, knowing that adopting a potentially feral cat from the street could be a tricky sort of maneuver to work out, but he discovered upon bending down that his ceaseless charm seemed to work on creatures of the feline variety as well. It was a mangy thing, fierce and small and lost and Harry realized with a strange sort of satisfaction that the cat looked exactly like he felt. And, also, that its name was going to be Clive.  
Harry tried to take Clive upstairs to his room, where the cat sniffed everything once before returning to Harry’s side and refusing to leave. It became clear that, at least for the time being, he wasn’t going to be able to go out without bringing the kitten, so he slid on his hoody, despite it being unseasonably warm, and popped Clive into the big pocket. He felt rather like a mama kangaroo.

There was a pet shop a few blocks away, and Harry walked to it feeling more excited and purposeful than he had in ages. Here was something that needed him, something that required more care than the cursory nature of what he was giving himself. Harry got to the shop and, to his annoyance, the lights were on but the door wouldn’t open, even after several tries. He turned, thinking he’d try back later, and there he found the second important thing of his day.

The boy was standing just a few feet behind him, arms crossed, one well-groomed eyebrow arched. “Can you read?” he asked, with a laugh in his voice, and gestured to the sign that said “pull” on the door Harry had just been pushing for a few minutes. Harry meant to respond, a snarky come back ready to trip its way out of his mouth, but then he realized that this boy had eyes that looked shockingly like Clive’s, and he stared, unable to vocalize his thoughts.

“Are you deaf as well as illiterate?” the boy asked cheekily, both eyebrows swooping dangerously far up his forehead. “I’m afraid I don’t know any sign language, but if you happen to speak dolphin, we should be set.” He laughed raucously at his own joke, and Harry felt like he had been startled back into his own skin. He gave a small giggle, more of surprise than at the comment itself, and smoothed his hair out of his face. “Oh, and I’m Louis,” the boy added, pleased to have earned a reaction at last.

“I’m Harry. Sorry, I guess I can be a bit oblivious. Hope I wasn’t holding you up,” Harry offered in return with the best of his smiles, feeling his usual charm settle back over him. It was going to be like this for a long time, Louis jostling Harry out of himself and giving him the peculiar sensation of slowly coming back down into his body more alert than before.

“Nah, not terribly, although I do have a bit of a crisis on my hands. I suppose you could make it up to me by helping out?”

“‘Course. What sort of a crisis?” Harry asked, genuinely intrigued. Louis’ eyes flashed in the brittle morning sunshine as he grinned mischievously, and Harry felt something in his stomach slide into place. He resisted reaching out a finger to touch the corner of Louis’ mouth, fascinated by its shape and the effect it was having on him.

“There’s a distinct possibility I killed my sister’s fish last night, and I have to find an identical replacement before she’s home from her sleepover at noon. Do you want to help?”

Harry smiled, almost disbelieving. “You killed it? Was it an accident or a case of cold-blooded fishicide?”

“Definitely the latter,” Louis responded, his eyes snapping at the banter. “The poor bastard was having an affair with my girlfriend.”

Harry was surprised to feel the twist in his stomach at the word, but then Louis had taken his hand and was pulling him into the tiny, crowded pet shop, his soft fingers tugging Harry through a maze of bubbling treasure chests and rabbit food until they reached the wide, cool tanks near the back. They stood together, noses against the glass, watching the goldfish flit back and forth making accidental figure eights and ovals and the occasional ambitious rhombus. Harry was entranced until he heard Louis give a small, strangled cry next to him.  
“Harry,” he said, gesturing to his midriff, “please don’t panic, but I think you may have a cat in your pocket.”

Harry can’t remember what came over him, but at that moment something inside of him loosened, a damn opening all at once. He looked at the bright-eyed boy next to him and started laughing, an uncontrollable giggle that grew until he was gasping for breath and Louis was laughing with him, not sure why but happy to accompany him regardless. Clive was startled but not unhappy, his head sticking out from Harry’s pocket like a pig in a blanket, and Harry caught sight of his own face in the goldfish tank, red and aching, hurting with more real emotion than he had felt in an eternity. Wiping away tears, he wordlessly helped a chattering Louis pick out a goldfish that would “fool Lottie, no doubt about it, it’s got the same baffled expression as the last one,” and then the two of them spent an absurd amount of time choosing cat food and toys and a bed, although Harry planned to have Clive sleep with him. If he ever slept.

It was nearly noon when the two of them left the shop, and Louis had to return home to get the fish set up. Harry felt a small twinge in his belly as they stood outside, but then Louis made it easy: “meet back here in an hour for lunch, yeah? I think we need to celebrate a job well done.” 

Harry took Clive home, and distracted him for long enough with food to slip back out the door, his heart racing for some reason he couldn’t or didn’t want to imagine as he returned to the street corner where Louis is waiting for him. He hadn’t seen Harry yet, which Harry was grateful for, because it gave him the chance to study Louis carefully: the flip of his fringe, his taught legs, the slip of skin between his shirt and his pants that Harry had the strangest urge to lick. But then Louis saw him and his face lit up and the next hour was a whirl of greasy eggs and more tea and laughing and stories and Louis’ face and those strange eyes and Louis’ hand on his thigh and then Louis saying “I don’t actually have a girlfriend, you know” and Harry was suddenly completely certain how he should interpret the twinges in his belly. He tried to smile, one of the long, slow, smoldering looks he knew he was good at, but it got caught somewhere below his windpipe as Louis beat him to it, gazing at Harry from underneath his eyelashes with a kind of confidence that Harry felt as though he could drink.

“Oh, fuck, it’s past two,” Louis exclaimed, suddenly standing and breaking the walls of the fort they’d built in the corner of the shop out of stories and hand touches and Significant Looks. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he had been this flustered, and it was fun, it was thrilling, it was new, and he was following Louis out onto the street. 

Quick as a flash as the shop door closed, Louis turned, his thumb finding Harry’s lower lip, and then Harry was leaning forward and he was certain his heart was going to explode out of his body it was racing so fast. Louis’ lips were warm and he tasted like boy and salt and something that Harry knew he was never going to have his fill of, so he darted out his tongue and traced the outline of Louis’ lips and tangled a broad hand into his hair and then Louis was gone and Harry felt like a hospital patient disconnected from life support. Louis slipped his hand from underneath Harry’s shirt and wiped it across his mouth like a child, looking bitten and flushed and completely edible. “I have to go,” he muttered hoarsely, “but I’m going to see you again, ok?” He leaned forward and nipped Harry’s neck and then turned, speeding away like he had to go quickly or never leave. Harry was left panting, touching a finger to the spot on his neck and dazedly wondering how on earth they were going to find each other again.

He made it up the stairs, somehow, where Clive met him at the door, and then he laid down and slept.

-

The next time Harry saw Louis, he was drunk.

He heard someone call a slurred version of his name across the lowly lit bar, an exclamation barely spanning the two syllables it required, but something about made him turn around anyway, sure that it was a demand for his attention. It took Harry a moment to realize where it had come from, as Louis was disconcertingly sprawled upside down across the laps of two boys, his floppy fringe trying its hardest to make a break for the ground below him and his red suspenders laying akimbo across his chest and shoulders. Louis sat up suddenly as Harry made his way over, then pulled a face that made it clear the motion had been the wrong choice.

“Harry,” he announced gravely once they were within speaking distance of each other, “I am drunk.”

“Louis,” Harry responded, “you could have fooled me. You look as sober as an American on the Fourth of July.” He didn’t mention that he, too, felt drunk, actually had felt that way for the last four days as he subsided off of little besides the memory of their hasty kiss outside the shop.

“See, I told you he was a laugh!” Louis said triumphantly, turning to the two boys who were serving as his personal chaise lounge. Harry tried not to let his reaction to the fact that Louis had been talking about him show on his face, which was a real feat given the affect it had on a point somewhere right near the equator of his body. Instead he raised his hand in a sort of solute and said: “I’m Harry.”

“I gathered as much,” said one of the boys, crinkling the corners of his eyes up in a smile that made Harry feel as though he suddenly fit correctly inside his own skin. “I’m Niall, otherwise known as this one’s babysitter.” He ruffled Louis’ hair affectionately and then gestured towards the other boy. “Zayn and I here like to think of ourselves as his legal guardians, although if anyone ever let that happen they’d have to be out of their minds.”

Harry grinned and turned his attention to the second boy, realizing as he did that he had never seen someone quite so -beautiful. There really wasn’t another way to describe it. Zayn’s eyelashes looked like the feathers of some exotic bird against his unnaturally burnished skin and he had the kind of cheekbones that would be confiscated at an airport security checkpoint. He raised his eyebrows in a friendly greeting in Harry’s general direction, and Harry grinned easily back. Zayn looked like he existed in a perpetually awesome place.

“Well, that’s all right then,” Louis said, sitting up as straight as he could (which was still practically sideways) and clasping Harry’s hand to pull him closer, wedging him between himself and Niall on the cracking pleather couch. “You’ve met my best mates so everything is right in the world. Although, I don’t think the world is right side up anymore, but I have a hunch that’s just me.” He leaned his head back against the couch and sighed contentedly, letting his eyelids flutter as he closed them in a tempo that almost matched Harry’s heart rate. 

Suddenly, he turned to Harry with a conspiratorial grin, letting one eye peek open, and whispered “I think I might kiss Harry tonight” before his eye drifted closed again.

Harry tried to keep his expression serious and his heart from beating out of his body as he answered “only might?” Louis’ eyes flew open together this time, and he looked at Harry with a small amount of alarm. “Could you excuse me for just a moment?” He asked, then turned to Zayn on his other side and whispered loudly, again, “I think I might kiss Harry tonight.”

“Oh, God,” Niall interjected, rolling his eyes at Harry and squeezing him on the knee. “None of us are drunk enough for this except for you, Lou. Harry, come get some pints with me?” He vaulted himself off of the couch, and when Harry stood he was surprised to see that Niall was nearly as tall as he was, with hips so narrow they looked like the could fit through a doggy door. Louis certainly didn’t have unattractive friends.

Niall gave Harry an appraising look as they pushed their way through the crowd towards the bar, giving him a wicked grin. “You know, you had quite an effect on our Lou,” he tossed out, his ocean-tinted eyes flashing with good humor and what Harry surmised was also a bit of a warning. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was for him or against him, though. “Louis is like a hurricane, ok?” Niall said, offering an unsolicited explanation for something, although Harry wasn’t confident what. “You get on his periphery, and it’s wild and raucous and there’s no real escape until you reach the center of it, but then you’re pretty much stuck there. He doesn’t let go of people easily, and you probably won’t want him to.” Harry didn’t know what to do except nod, lodge the word “hurricane” into the section of his brain that was rapidly filling with Louis paraphernalia (the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, the unnameable taste of that kiss, the way he put his hand on Harry’s thigh when he was making a point) and take several of the pints that Niall had ordered. “That being said,” Niall threw over his shoulder as they made their way back to the couch, “the good news is that Louis’ a package deal: you get me too!” he winked and then laughed at his own joke, then added “and Zayn too I suppose. And Liam. Ooh, wait until you meet Liam.”

Harry wasn’t given much chance to ponder this before Louis had pulled him back down on the couch, their thighs pressed together like a hug, and began sternly lecturing Harry about the virtues of being really, thoroughly drunk. “You need to drink that beer now, Harry,” he prompted, “because nothing hurts when you are drunk. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.” He paused and then added, “damn, that is a good quote. Copyright: me. You all heard it here first.”

“I’m not sure -” Harry and Zayn both started together, and then grinned at each other as Louis interrupted “have a little faith please. I am confident I just made that up. Overconfident, even.”

“Can’t argue with assurance like that,” Niall shrugged, and Harry felt that if his smile grew any wider it would split his face open. It seemed like the longer he spent in the presence of this trio the more comfortable he was, the more languorous his limbs felt, and he had the strangest sensation that, had he wanted to, he could have charmed anyone in a 30 mile radius into doing anything he might ask of them. (Harry had an endearing knack for not recognizing that he could, in fact, do this at any point he wanted).

Zayn spoke directly to Harry for the first time, one corner of his (incredibly lush, as Harry noted) mouth quirking up. “Are you taking Sir Louis home this evening, or are we still in charge of him?”

Harry knew that the look on his face was probably unbearably predatory at the thought of taking Louis home with him, but he also knew it was a silly idea. “Nah, better not,” he tossed off lightly, “as my room is about the last place you’d want to wake up with a hangover like the one he’s going to have.”

“Come home with us, then, and you will meet Liam in the morning. He’ll probably make breakfast” Niall said in a tone that left little room for argument, as if Harry would have offered any. He thought for a moment of Clive, alone and probably resentful of the fact, but resolved that he would be back early enough to make it up to the cat. Nobody had made him proper breakfast in a long, long time.

By the time they stumbled toward’s the boys’ apartment several hours later, Harry was quite drunker than he had been, well, possibly ever. It was a heady combination of new friends and proximity to Louis and the looks he had been getting from boys and girls alike all night: long, lusty glances out from under eyelashes and fringes that made him hyperaware of his own attraction. Zayn and Niall were attempting to do cartwheels down the deserted sidewalks, ending each try in a hilariously flamboyant pose and blowing kisses to invisible fans and each other. Niall succeeded in pulling down Zayn’s pants in the middle of one go, and Louis laughed so hard he had to sit down on the curb with his head between his knees, panting and wiping away tears from his ruddy cheeks. Harry sat next to him, laughing more at Louis than anything, realizing that the strange pressure residing just under his clavicle was actually a happiness of such intensity it was practically holding him a few inches off of the pavement.

Their flat was big and echoey, barely furnished but full nonetheless of laughter and the almost tangible sense of friendship that the boys carried around with them like a blanket. Harry hadn’t felt so at ease since he was a small child, something he marveled at as he forced down a glass of water and made the other three do the same. It wasn’t even possible to wrap his head around just how good it felt.

Zayn disappeared into his room and Niall passed out on the couch within moments, his blonde hair tousled and one lanky leg draped over the backside of the sofa. Louis, suddenly seeming much more sober, took Harry by the wrist and led him through the flat to a small bedroom at the back, decorated liberally with pictures and dirty clothes and Louis’ smell. “There’s really no need to sleep in your clothes,” Louis announced, stripping down to a shirt and his superman underwear. “Modesty isn’t really encouraged in this household.” He didn’t avert his eyes as Harry undressed, and Harry didn’t mind, although when did he ever. He knew his body was powerful, and he had perfected the art of using it that way long ago, when he lost control of most other things.

They laid in Louis’ bed for a long time, sprawled across his duvet like two starfish, their bodies singing wherever they made contact with one another. Harry couldn’t stop himself from humming contentedly, pausing only a little as Louis reached out to rest a warm finger on his throat, feeling the vibrations under Harry’s golden skin. It was an undeniable sort of magnetism, really, as Harry could’ve sworn neither of them moved an inch, yet it didn’t take long for the space between their bodies (not negative space, no, but very, very positive) to close immeasurably. Everything slowed, time became honey glazed, and when Harry reached forward to nip Louis’ jawbone, it came into starting amber focus, pulsing and glowing and crackling. It wasn’t frantic at all. Harry moved easily, his skin sliding over Louis’ as he raised himself on his forearms, hovering over Louis and arching his neck as he planted feathery kisses across the expanse of Harry’s throat. There were sweet pecks on eyelids, long, slow kisses that caused Harry to growl, nails run over skin in a way that made Harry more aware of the shape and stretch of his body than he ever had been before. They were smooth, unhurried, sweet, falling asleep so close together that even they couldn’t tell whose limbs were whose, where one ended and the other began.

-

Harry woke up throbbing in one or five too many places with the Sahara Desert somehow wedged between his teeth and the back of his throat. He didn’t have to open his eyes to locate Louis on the bed, because they had remained intertwined throughout the night and Harry could feel Louis’ breath wuffling sweetly across his chest. He was sweaty and hungover and uncomfortable, the romance of waking up next to someone (next to, on top of, connected to?) clearly reserved for movies and teen novels. He was so, so content though, realizing it was the best night of sleep he’d had in what felt like lifetimes. And when he thought about the kissing from the night before, there was a tightening in his hamstrings, a little hitch in his body that felt like a plaintive cry for more.

Louis’ eyes blinked open then and found Harry’s immediately, a slow, impudent smile sliding across his sleepy features. “Why, Mr. Styles,” he drawled, his voice lower and scratchier than usual, a sound that made Harry feel like he was turning inside out, “Waking up in bed with a near-stranger? What would your mother think? I could have terrible intentions towards you and you wouldn’t even know, except for the fact that I’m now telling you: I have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad intentions towards you.”

“You know, I’m fairly certain that last bit was from the title of a children’s book,” Harry said, biting his response out around the beginnings of a massive smirk. He was fairly easy to arouse, sure, but the way Louis had crossed it off of his to-do list within moments of waking up was almost awe-inspiring. If Harry had been the sort to get embarrassed, the obvious effect that Louis’ intentions were having on him would have been quite embarrassing, but as it was, he was really rather enjoying himself.

“No, I think I probably made that up,” Louis said confidently, glancing up at Harry out of the corner of his eyes, daring a challenge. It was becoming clear to Harry that Louis had no issue shamelessly claiming others’ quotes as his own, and he was just cute enough to make it endearing. Actually, Harry thought, it was pretty clear Louis had no issue with shame in general. 

“Yes,” he agreed amicably, “you probably did, and I am probably in an internationally famous boy band. Just so long as we’re discussing the wildly improbable.” Louis giggled, drawing a finger from Harry’s bellybutton, visible just above the pale green sheet, to his collarbone, in a single gesture effectively raising Harry’s discomfort from a relatively pleasant level to a serious need for some attention. He let out a little strangled breath, surprising both himself and Louis, who pushed himself up onto his forearms and gave Harry an appraising look, so predatory Harry could almost taste it.

And then Harry’s broad hands were reaching for Louis, one on his face and one in the feathery hair at the nape of his neck and when was the last time he had been so turned on because Louis was making little noises and foraging trails up and down Harry’s neck with his tongue and Harry had the sensation he was being marked as Louis’ territory. He felt almost violent: he wanted scratch marks and so much pressure it hurt and bruised lips and he was reaching for Louis and so, so needy, had he ever been this needy and then Louis’ cool hand was touching him and Harry thought for an instant that if he had to choose a moment to live inside of forever, it would be this one. Everything was white hot and the pressure behind his eyes made Harry push his head back against the headboard, scrabbling for the sheets to anchor him before his body simply dissolved. Had he been able to see, Louis’ grin would’ve been at the forefront of his vision, a look eerily familiar to the possessive, primal, greedy look Harry himself wore when pleasuring another person.

It was a handjob, sure enough, but that word made Harry think of fumbling fifteen year olds in the school basement, not whatever Louis was doing (although it certainly could have been his job), which felt like the trigger Harry’s body had been waiting for, possibly built for. He couldn’t help but laugh a little as he came, yanking Louis closer to him and biting down almost savagely on his bottom lip in an effort to transmit some of his euphoria and the almost nauseating sensation that he was plummeting through space. They laid side by side, panting, until Louis nuzzled his nose up to Harry’s ear and whispered “I’m sorry, but I am unclear as to whether or not you enjoyed that.”

“God, you’re a bitch,” Harry laughed. He was sure that, had he looked in a mirror, his eyes would’ve had a new sheen to them, the line of his jaw imparted with a new roughness and understanding. Interesting what seven minutes and a good orgasm can do to a boy.

When they had cleaned up and Harry found a hoodie and boxers of Louis’ to wear (there was something mysterious spilled over the majority of his previous day’s shirt), the twosome made their way back out into the kitchen of the apartment, where something smelled delicious and homey. Harry walked behind Louis, loving his extra inch or two or height and harboring fantasies of Louis’ head tucked neatly into the hollow where his neck and shoulder collided. The two boys from the night before were perched on barstools at the counter, and a third, tall, brown haired and puppyish, was standing in front of the stove top scrambling eggs. Harry was hit with a sudden wave of shyness as the three gave him and Louis an appraising look. But then Niall’s eyes were still oceanic and crinkly and Zayn still looked beautiful and the ease Harry had felt the night before came back and took him suddenly by the hand. The third boy said “Hi, I’m Liam, you’re Harry and you’re in Louis’ clothes” in a sort of rush, then immediately cocked his head to the side with a look that suggested he had not been in control of that introduction. “Let me try that again,” he offered, “Hello, I’m Liam, I don’t know your name as we’ve never met and I am happy to assume those are your boxers after all.” He crossed the kitchen and held out a hand to Harry.

“No, these are definitely Louis’,” Harry said, grasping the proffered hand with a smile that threatened to split his face in two. “The rest of my wardrobe wouldn’t get along so well with either purple or tiny flowers.” Liam laughed, and Harry felt overwhelmingly attracted to him, a kind of platonic fascination that made him feel like being Liam’s friend was probably the most important goal he could achieve for the time being.

“Harry,” Liam began, visibly trying to rearrange his features into a more stern pattern (they refused), “before we let you continue with our Lou,” he blushed a little at the accidental insinuation then continued, “I have an important question for you. Do you like chocolate chip waffles? Or are you perhaps Satan?”

“Careful,” Niall warned from next to Harry. “Not sure if you can tell, but there is definitely a right answer to this one.”

“Look,” Harry said, his mouth quirking up to the side, “if you’d like I can give you a quick write up of people I’d happily kill for a single chocolate chip waffle.”

“Excellent,” Zayn chimed in. “In that case, Liam will be happy to provide you with a big plateful once you’ve kindly taken care of a few people for us.” Harry laughed, feeling Louis’ hand slide under the ridge of his sweatshirt, holding a warm sort of approval against the skin of his back. He eagerly took the cup of tea Niall poured for him, realizing with a start that his hangover, the same one that had threatened total destruction in the moments right after he’d woken up, had lessoned itself considerably. He supposed he had Louis to thank for that.

Breakfast, it seemed, was a family affair. Niall was on tea duty, perpetually boiling water and doling out sugar cubes like the local economy depended on it, while Zayn took on the task of eating every fucking thing in arm’s reach. Niall had to keep swatting Zayn’s hands away from his own heavily loaded plate, squawking indignantly and throwing out extremely disproportionate threats (“I’m going to put your balls in the food processor”) whenever Zayn successfully kidnapped a piece of bacon or the likes. Louis mediated between them good-naturedly, while occasionally rolling his firecracker eyes at Harry and carrying on a conversation with Liam about an audition he’d had the day before. Apparently Liam played the guitar, and was really quite good at it, but didn’t think he could ever be taken seriously. “He’s unbelievable,” Louis whispered to Harry, stroking his fingers across the back of Harry’s neck. “You wouldn’t believe the swooning that goes on around him. Three chords and the panties within a few hundred miles have mysteriously vanished.”

“I can hear you, you bastard,” Liam said, and to Harry the curse seemed very much like a lost phrase that had accidentally found its way to Liam mouth. Niall caught Harry’s expression and grinned knowingly. “It’s like watching a nun give a blowjob, I know,” he smirked, earning a smack on the head from Liam’s eggy spatula. In an instant, Zayn went from sneaking more of Niall’s waffles to defending him, a sweetly ferocious display that involved bear hugging Liam and shaking him roughly, chanting “leave Niall alone, leave Niall alone,” until all three of them had somehow ended up on the floor, laughing and hitting and petting each other. It was one of the most bizarre and lovely scenes Harry had witnessed, and he felt like he had stumbled into a completely alternate world, one he never wanted to leave. He ate his warm waffles (now that he’d tasted them, he was even more sure about his promise to kill for them) and stroked Louis’ knee with his thumb and smiled idiotically until his face ached.

-

Harry’s life had suddenly acquired a new pattern, a lazy, sweet rotation. On one hand there were hours spent lying in bed with Clive warm on his chest, reading tattered paperback plays and letting the cat’s purr seep through him like honey, and on the other was time spent perching at the kitchen counter in the boys’ apartment while Liam tried out new recipes and hummed Britney songs and Louis sat next to Harry, legs thrown over his lap (and what legs they were). Harry was still wandering listlessly the nights he was alone, a habit from the months before that he simply couldn’t stow away completely. The 3 am walks had a new flavor to them now, as often Clive came with him, riding in the pocket of his favorite sweatshirt, and because he used them mainly to think about the way Louis held his name in his soft mouth, keeping the “Harry” between his lips for just a moment too long and then sending it off with a blessing from his tongue. It could be sweet, demanding, yearning, eager, or marinated in a kind of lust that made Harry want to claw his way inside of Louis’ skin, get as close to him as possible. They hadn’t done much beyond Louis’ morning wakeup call and a lot of frantic, delicious kisses, but they left Harry satiated and he was, for once, interested in something other than getting as much action as quickly as possible.

Harry had kissed boys before, he had. He knew that their mouths were harder, more insistent, that they tasted like heat and roughness in a way that girls didn’t. He had never thought of himself as gay or straight or curious or bi or anything, because he just really hadn’t thought about it. He liked people, he liked bodies. He had never really had a type. Well, that wasn’t quite true: his type had always been hip bones and elbows and the stretch of skin over ribs and the seashells inside of ears, no matter whom it belonged to. Now, however, he was fairly confident his type was just Louis. Or, if that was too specific, boys with smirks that made his head go fuzzy, boys who favored striped shirts and stood on their tiptoes to kiss him, boys with feathery hair who made him feel bashful and exultant and frustrated all at once. So, yeah, his type was Louis.

Hanging out with Louis and his friends was kind of a double-edged blade (a butter knife, if anything, but still painful to have thrown at him). On the one side were the moments of being with them, when Harry felt like he was anchored down in the nucleus of a kind of living organism compiled of inside jokes and roughhousing and so, so much care. And then there was the time after, when he was in his flat alone and wishing he could text one of them or just appear at their door and have it be fine, have him be as much a vital part of their crew as he wanted to be. But he knew that Louis was his tie-in, his initial invitation to this testosterone and affection fueled cruise, and he still didn’t feel like he had a place with them except for as an addendum to Louis. Harry knew how to be alone, but being alone after being surrounded by their banter and constant physical contact meant for a much different sort of ache. It gave Harry something to miss, a tangible absence. Louis was their pet, their middle ground, and on the nights and weekends he spent away at his family’s house, Harry felt completely adrift.

The third time it happened that Louis was out of contact for the weekend, Harry realized with a sickening crunch right behind his sternum just how dangerous this situation was becoming. He had been forced to learn how to be independent once, against his nature, and realizing he was again becoming a dependent party felt like he was stepping off of a ledge with no idea how far away the ground was. He sat in the dark corner of a coffee shop near his flat for hours, immobilized by his opposing desires to disappear, shake off Louis while he still had a chance, and conversely find a way to never be somewhere he wasn’t breathing Louis in.

When he finally stood up, unbent his long, lean legs in jeans softened from hundreds of wears, Harry had made a decision: it wasn’t worth it. The feel of Louis’ eyelashes against his cheek couldn’t outweigh the horrible aftermath, the sensation that he just couldn’t continue existing without their feathery touch and the thousand of other quirks that came with it (when Louis had surprised him in the bathroom while he was brushing his teeth and spent a good twenty minutes acquainting his tongue with the back of Harry’s neck, waking up to find Louis’ pointer finger tucked under the waistband of his boxers). The shop was closing and the boy behind the counter who had been eyeing him up for hours was walking out, staring Harry down with a familiar predatory look on his face. Harry followed him, already tasting the gritty sand of their kiss.

He would have gone along with it, too. What was sex, after all? It wasn’t really anything, or at least it felt that way given that the absence of sex had been so much more exciting in the few weeks he had been with Louis. He was pretty certain that a night of writhing and sweating under the watchful eye of a Vampire Weekend poster (he looked like the kind of boy who would decorate his walls with that) would be just the thing to settle his old, dispassionate, detached charm back onto his body like the itchy but comfortable sweater it was. They walked quietly, talking mostly in snatched glances, passing by a couple making out against the rough brick of an apartment building. Harry averted his eyes mostly because it made him want Louis with a deep-seated ache that only reaffirmed his decision, but curiosity pulled his gaze back at the last moment and he suddenly stopped in his tracks a few yards past them, quite sure of what he had seen but not quite able to believe it. Did he sprint in the opposite direction, or turn around? “I’ve just remembered something I have to do” he muttered at the boy, who gave him a dark look then walked away, his shoulders hoisted high.

Steeling himself, Harry made the slow rotation, letting the rubber soles of his Converse creak against the sidewalk. It was twilight, a time of almost-dark, but it only took a moment of concentration to confirm what Harry’s subconscious had caught in the instant he walked by. The couple was still going at it, pressed up against each other like their bodies were stitching together a fault line, mending some kind of tear in the air between them. It was so intimate that Harry felt uncomfortable, a remarkable feat, but he coughed gently anyway, determined to get their attention.

And then they turned to look at him and Harry was confronted with Niall and Zayn’s flushed faces, floating in the weird light just a few feet from him, looking surprised and abashed and completely unrepentant. They didn’t even bother to separate, Niall instead sinking further into the edges of Zayn’s body as he smiled at Harry.

“Zayn,” he said quietly, “I’m not exactly sure how to tell you this, but I think we may have been spotted.”

“No,” Zayn responded, laughing, “I don’t think so at all. We should probably continue,” and then he hooked a finger under Niall’s chin and pulled him in for another kiss. Harry was hit with an overwhelming wave of affection, wanting to shout and hug them and demand they tell him exactly everything because _how long had this been happening and did anybody know and did they realize exactly how fucking good they looked molded against each other._ They peeled apart slowly, coming towards Harry, and Niall reached out to give him a hug.

“Hi, Harry,” he said, a familiar grin taking up residence on his open, cheerful face. “You look a little peaky, mate. I hope it’s not from the two of us. It would really suck if you were homophobic, you know.” Zayn nodded his agreement, Harry laughed.

“I’m sickened, you two,” he said. “You know there is nothing I find more distasteful than two males kissing. Do me a favor and bleach my eyes?” He ignored Niall’s comment about his appearance, which he was certain was a result of spending hours trying to eradicate the steely hold their best friend had assumed over him, liking instead the ease with which he slipped into banter and the metallic taste that accompanied his grinning mouth.

“That’s how I felt the first time you walked out of Louis’ room in his purple boxers,” Zayn tossed back, and Niall hit him tenderly on the cheek.

“Don’t listen to this one,” he countered, “he’s a little worked up, and I’m going to happily take credit for that.” Harry just kept smiling, unsure of how he could contribute to this conversation. “You know,” Niall continued, “you’re the first person to find us out? Louis and Liam would murder us if they knew you beat them to it, but we were actually not planning on telling anyone until we’d experimented a little.” Harry wanted to reach out and hug Niall, suddenly desperately envious of his easygoing nature and automatic desire to share. He wished there was a way to bottle a little Niall up, obtain a backup supply of sincerity and warm-heartedness for when his own supply ran short.

“So this whole snogging your best mate thing is relatively new, then?” He managed to ask, feeling that Niall’s offering was an invitation. The other two looked at each other and giggled a little, and Harry didn’t miss Zayn’s hand reaching out to slide into Niall’s back pocket. “You could say that,” he agreed, and Niall added “Seeing as how that was the first time we’ve actually had the pleasure, I’d say ‘relatively new’ might be understating the situation.” Harry’s eyes widened as Niall continued “I mean, we decided to try it and see if it was even worth continuing, which - “ he turned to Zayn, “I don’t know about you, but yes.”

“Ask nicely,” Zayn admonished.

“Please, can we continue with the kissing things and maybe even some other things like perhaps some touching and -”

“Should I go throw up now or wait for later?” Harry interrupted, gesturing to a bush behind him. “Seriously, you two, get an apartment or something.”

“Brilliant idea, Harry,” Zayn said, “I can’t believe we haven’t thought of that. Speaking of, you want to come back with us? Louis isn’t home, you know, but he’ll be back early and you can crash in his bed?”

Harry wanted to say no, he did. He had made a decision less than an hour ago, and he wanted so badly to stick with it. He also knew that being asked to come over, without Louis as the lynchpin, made his heart expand immeasurably. He felt like the Grinch, for chrissakes.

“Yeah, ok,” he agreed, “but only if you manage to save the heavy petting until you’re out of my sight.”

“No promises, mate,” Niall said, then turned and gave Zayn a huge, sloppy kiss on the lips.

-

Harry woke from strange dreams to the sensation of Louis climbing into bed with him, a blanket of muscle and heat and familiar, comforting smell. He could feel the atoms in his body rearranging themselves, scrambling over each other in an attempt to be as close to Louis as possible. “I almost left you,” he whispered, turning to face Lou with sleep still in his eyes. He felt like he was betraying his better instincts, allowing his sleepy mind to give itself an insurance policy in case rationality were to kick back in at a later date. “Don’t let me, ok?”

Louis looked at him seriously, a rare moment when his face was completely open, exposing to Harry genuine concern without traces of his usual humor. “I don’t know what you mean, sweet boy,” he said, but didn’t seem to be looking for a real explanation. Instead, he curled his sock-covered toes around Harry’s own and tucked his matted curls into the crook of his neck. It was a strange role reversal and the first time that Harry had been held like that in a long time. He felt an overwhelming surge of gratitude and frustration and panic all at once that resulted him him clinging closer to Louis, filling his lungs and bloodstream with his smell, trying to swallow the silvery knot that had lodged itself in his throat.

When they woke again, a few hours later, Harry and Louis had fitted themselves together so closely, it seemed silly to consider existing in the world in any other way. Harry’s arms had found their place under Louis’ shirt and were flush against his cool skin, the taut muscles of their boy stomachs rising and falling together with their breath. Louis made a move to extricate himself and Harry couldn’t help the whimper that escaped him, a tiny noise that nonetheless stopped Louis and made him turn to Harry with a look that could have melted granite. “Hey,” he said, “you’re okay, I swear,” and then rolled himself so that he was hovering over Harry on his forearms, quirking the corner of his mouth up in a promise. Harry couldn’t meet his eyes for a moment, but when he finally did, Louis leaned down and kissed him until his mind was empty, nothing important except Louis’ tongue and the outline of his lips and the steady rhythm of his hips grinding against Harry’s own, until his whimpers were of another sort entirely.

-

Being with Louis, it turned out, required a whole lot of stamina. Harry was frequently left feeling like he was in serious training, just not in any sort of athletic event (although sometimes they got pretty damn aerobic). It was more an exercise in opening himself up for long periods of time, to Louis, to his innumerable friends, to his own overarching desire to attach himself to Lou like velcro. It was scary in a heady, body-tingling way, like regaining feeling in a limb that has recently fallen asleep: a little uncomfortable and a little relieving in a way that made him hyperaware of the minutiae of his body. Harry felt like he fit into himself better, like this new opening up fit better written across his tall frame and broad hands than his closed exterior had just a few months before. It made sense, really, because Harry remembered now that his natural instinct was to share, let his face and the bitten skin around his thumbnails and the scar on the back of his left knee broadcast a special sort of frequency of his thoughts and feelings to those who were attuned to him, as Louis so clearly was.

Nowhere was this connection more apparent than during their raucous afternoons in Louis’ bed. They couldn’t lie next to each other and not touch for more than a few moments, finding divots and meeting places across each others’ skin like some kind of whole body sign language. They played so hard, in fact, that Harry was still getting off on the memory of his first blowjob (not his first, in actuality, but doing things with Louis made them important and right in a way that made them feel like different acts entirely), an event that had taken place midafternoon on a Thursday in his flat. It was the first and only time Louis had been there, after a request of his to visit Clive, during which Harry had spent the first twenty minutes or so rigidly pretending he wasn’t embarrassed and saddened by the small, lonely room he inhabited. But Louis knew, of course. He knew without asking and without acknowledging. Instead, he picked up Harry’s stuffed pig, Chrysanthemum (his sister had named her) and covered her eyes with a blanket, saying only “she’s not going to want to watch this next part” before backing Harry down onto the mattress and peeling off pieces of clothing one by one.

Harry didn’t think he’d ever been more aroused, lying naked and anticipatory underneath a fully clothed and fully mischievous Louis who was gazing down at him with a familiar predatory look. Louis took his time, spinning out a topographic map and several short novels across Harry’s bare and slightly salty skin, until Harry begged for the first time, an involuntary trust of his hips up into Louis’ where he was straddling him possessively. Louis raised an eyebrow in surprise and excitement, sinking his hips down against the undeniable feel of Harry’s need, clearly massively turned on himself and undoubtedly enjoying his power. He teased Harry relentlessly: gently grinding the worn-in material of his jeans against Harry’s eagerly thrusting pelvis, scraping his teeth and tongue across his nipples until Harry let out a sound so feral and needy that for a moment he didn’t even realize it had clawed its way out of his own throat.

That seemed to trigger something in Louis, however, because suddenly his hot weight was lifted off of Harry’s aching center and its absence was a terrible weightlessness and Harry realized all at once thatLouis was his anchor, that he was so past the point of not relying on Lou to keep him from spiraling off into the thin London air. And then Harry wasn’t thinking at all because Louis’ mouth was on him, a wet, sweet sort of heat that made him feel like his toes were embers and the pit of his stomach had zippered itself inside out completely. His hips were pulsating frantically a few inches off of the bed, his spine contorted in an ecstatic arch, and if it hadn’t been for his hands, gripping tightly onto the fabric of Louis soft shirt in a sharp contrast to the rest of his body, Harry would have been so overwhelmed by sensation he wouldn’t have felt anything at all. Louis’ mouth continued exploring and Harry didn’t even try to restrain the unbridled rolling of his hips, his heartbeat rocketing like a horse on a racetrack. He finally unscrewed his eyes, looking out at the flat through a haze of eyelashes and lust. The sight of Louis, kneeling lazy and feline between his legs was enough to send Harry hurtling over the edge, a wave of feeling breaking so hard and heavy over his shoulders that Harry felt as though his entire body had been cleansed, leaving behind the purest sort of pleasure and awareness and contentedness he could imagine.

And then Louis had just looked so goddamn pleased with himself that Harry had to do something about it, sliding his hands down Lou’s pants and over his ass and stroking him with a kind of confidence that could only come from intense intimacy. They stared at each other as Louis came, breathing hard and heavy, their faces a few inches apart, both flushed and Louis biting his lip so hard it left visible toothmarks, little ridges across his skin that Harry wanted to trace, commit to memory with the pads of his fingers and his tongue and the tip of his nose. And then they fell asleep, wearing pairs of faded grey sweatpants and nothing else. They were sticky in the most delicious, satisfying kind of way, their skin catching where they made contact at the rise and fall of their breathes, Louis’ thigh wedged firmly between both of Harry’s legs and his head tucked neatly into the curve above Harry’s collarbones, his breath shivering out sweetly across Harry’s bare chest like a promise.

-

It seemed like, now that Harry was the one person besides themselves who knew about the developments in Niall and Zayn’s relationship, he was destined to accidentally stumble across the two of them in compromising positions on an alarmingly regular basis. In the course of a single afternoon at Basecamp (Liam insisted this was the name of their apartment and the other boys lovingly obliged him), Harry found the two of them multiple times: first in the window nook, Niall’s baseball cap popping off of his disarranged blonde hair at an angle that suggested the ferocity of their kissing, and Zayn fresh from the shower, a towel slung low across his golden hips. They didn’t see him and he didn’t particularly want to be seen, staying for just a moment too long, fascinated by the contrast of their hair and their height and their skin. Then, only a few hours later after he and Louis had eaten big bowls of mac and cheese together on the kitchen floor while doing crossword puzzles (“are we living in a young adult novel?” Louis had mused), Harry walked into the living room to grab his jacket only to find Zayn and Niall on the couch getting handsy under a flannel blanket.

“Your subtlety is admirable,” he said, grabbing his hoodie from the ground and grinning at the sweet blush creeping its way across Niall’s face. His hands stilled under the blanket and Zayn tipped his head backward in frustration, clearly more upset by Niall ceasing action than being caught. “Really though,” Harry added, “you’re lucky it’s me. If you keep up like this it’ll be like everyone else in the apartment suddenly has free porn at their disposal.”

“Either join or get out, Harry,” Zayn spat from his position on the couch, his head still tipped back and his voice low and raspy. Harry actually pondered it for a moment, thinking that he really wouldn’t mind being sandwiched between the two of them. Maybe in the shower?

“It’s sweet of you to offer,” he said, “but I’ll leave you to it,” and wandered back into the kitchen.

“That took a while” Louis said, gazing up at Harry from where he was still laying on his tummy on the ground, looking adorable and irresistible and edible and a million other adjectives that Harry could have continued listing if he hadn’t laid down next to him and leaned in for a sweet kiss.

“Just having a little…chat with Niall and Zayn,” he offered, pulling away and sweeping a feathery lock of hair out of Louis’ eyes.

“They love you, you know,” Louis commented, hoisting himself up on an elbow. “I’m so happy you get along with them. They don’t take to everyone this easily.” Harry tried to imagine meeting Niall and Zayn and especially Liam and not having the instantaneous desire to be their friends or feeling so accepted by them but then that led to unpleasant thoughts like who had Louis introduced to them before? So instead he curled his long fingers into the collar of Louis’ shirt and muttered “I’m happy too” into the warm spot behind his ear.

“You know what?” Louis asked, as he slid a few inquisitive fingers into Harry’s jeans, pressing into his skin so hard that Harry thought his fingerprints might still be tattooed there in a few hours.

“What?” Harry whispered, suddenly unable to use his voice in its full functionality.

“I don’t mean to brag, but I figured it out. 34 down? The answer was jockey. I hope I’m not accidentally arousing you with my stunning intelligence?”

Harry giggled. “Yeah, it’s definitely your intelligence. The hand down my pants has nothing to do with it.”

“You know what?” Louis said. “I think we should spice this up a little. I’ll be right back.” He stood up, planting a kiss on the bridge of Harry’s nose, leaving him smiling and spread out on the linoleum like a contended cat. So contended, in fact, that he failed to realize anywhere Louis might be going in the apartment would take him straight through the living room, until he came reeling back through the door, clutching his face and smashing a knee into the cabinet with a dramatic bang.

“WHAT JUST WENT INTO MY EYES,” he gasped, staring at Harry with a look of utter horror. “Oh my god, oh my GOD, will I ever unsee this?” He dropped to his knees like he’d been shot, and Harry sat up with a laugh, a little concerned but mostly amused. He knew Louis wasn’t actually mad.

“I’m guessing you found Zayn and Niall?” He said, placing a broad hand on Louis’ shoulder. “It’s a lot to take in, I know.” Louis’ face darkened imperceptibly, a change from feigned to real concern.

“You knew about this?” He asked, his face suddenly and uncharacteristically somber.

“Just for a few weeks, yeah, but I figured it was their secret to keep or not, although trust me, they weren’t keeping it well-”

“A few weeks?” Louis said quietly, shrinking away from Harry’s hand on his shoulder. “A few weeks.” He stood up, bracing his hands against the sink, and Harry experienced a moment of crippling panic, looking at the impassible wall of Louis’ back and imagining he would never be able to touch it again, feel the skin dipping between his ribs and watching the goosebumps rise across it. There was nothing like being confronted with the prospect of losing something to make Harry realize exactly how much he depended on it.

But then Louis turned to look at him and Harry let go of his breath in a rush and maybe everything was ok and his chest wasn’t going to be caged forever but then Louis had walked out of the kitchen.

Niall and Zayn found him a few minutes later, sitting against the fridge, chewing savagely on a thumbnail.

“Turns out you were right,” Niall said, crouching down and squeezing Harry’s knee. “We kind of fucked up, I guess, and we really need to work on the subtlety thing.”

“It’s my fault, mostly,” Zayn interjected, “seeing as how I can’t seem to keep my hands to myself anymore around this little shit.” Niall grinned at him goofily and then turned back to Harry. “Look, we’re going to talk to him. It might take a little, but it’s gonna be ok.” They left.

Harry felt pretty much like it wasn’t going to be ok. He understood why Louis was upset, but he also felt like it hadn’t been his place to share. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to find them exploring each other in the first place. He left the apartment, meandering down to the pond, tripping spectacularly over his shoelaces on the gravel path and lodging pieces of gravel into the palms of his hands. He felt like a fucking PSA for teen angst. This really wasn’t a big deal. The best thing to do would be walk back to the apartment and apologize, touch Louis in any way possible, feel the code breaker for his emotions play out in the electric spark between their fingers. But he couldn’t shake the sensation that he was a kicked puppy, hurt more in pride than anything else and so unshakably fearful that he was no longer wanted.

-

It took Louis nearly two days, actually 43 and a half hours, to contact Harry. Forty three and a half hours during which Harry was occupied by two thoughts: why couldn’t both of them just get over themselves and good, this is good, maybe now I can be done with this stupid dependency. He didn’t really want to be but it felt like a sign, something he could cling to like a pair of floaties in the deep end. But then Louis appeared at his door and he opened it in nothing but boxers and his Ramones shirt (he’d climbed into it in the first hour and had only taken if off for his shower during the twenty first). The sight of Louis, his dumb striped shirt and the dumb ever-present sliver of tantalizing skin above his waistband and dumb rolled jeans that fit him so so well and something lodged itself in Harry’s throat that felt an awful lot like sadness.

“Niall and Zayn told me to come,” Louis started, “but Liam was the one who convinced me. His disappointment is impossible to resist, but I should’ve done it on my own. Look, I’ve been a massive dick, okay, and I overreacted and I’m sorry. Can I have some tea?”

Tea. Yes. Tea was something Harry could do. He made a show of plugging in the electric tea kettle and preparing his favorite mug with a teabag and honey and trying to find a clean spoon and thinking desperately of an appropriate response, which was proving tough as he didn’t seem to have control of English anymore. He didn’t know if he should give up as easily as he wanted to or hold out, prove some kind of point to Louis and himself. And then Louis was behind him, tentative, his sweet breath on the back of Harry’s neck and his fingers playing Harry’s ribs like an accordion. Harry felt his shirt and his skin were melting away under Louis’ touch, his bones climbing over themselves for their share of the Louis action.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I’m sorry because it wasn’t fair but I thought I was keeping their secret and I just want to be their friends as well and I didn’t mean to leave you out,” Harry began, all in a rush, but Louis cut him off with a kiss and then said seriously “you were right. And that’s why I was so upset. Those boys mean the absolute world to me and I think I’ve just been a little jealous how much they love you and you don’t even realize how easy and charismatic and damn irresistible you are.”

Harry could feel his cheeks growing hot, and even more tellingly, the tips of his ears. “Stop,” he implored, “I can’t tell you how much I’ve stressed over them liking me, and you, and I’m really just fumbling and awkward and sad and I live in this little room and you glow, Louis, do you know that?”

“Harry,” Louis said seriously, “You never need to question me liking you. I like you and your eyelashes and the way your mouth quirks up in one corner that makes me wanna kiss it and the backs of your knees and the hum of your voice and I could continue but I’d much rather take your pants off.”

He did just that, backing Harry onto the mattress and sliding his boxers down so, so slowly, teasing like the monster he was. Harry let Louis touch him for a few minutes, dragging his tongue across Harry’s stomach right below his bellybutton and clutching his hands against the back of Harry’s thighs. And then Harry had had enough because Louis was always in charge and he wanted to be for once and he was so relieved and aroused and it had been a goddamn long forty three and a half hours.

Louis sucked in a little gasp of air when Harry flipped him over, a flush appearing in his cheeks that Harry had never seen before. He undressed Louis quickly, impatiently, kissing and licking pieces of gilded skin as they were revealed to him, taking an extra moment over the impressive bruise on Louis’ knee from where it had connected with the cabinet. He teased Louis with weeks of pent up sexual frustration, delivering a fair dosage of Louis’ own sport to him shamelessly. He’d forgotten how much he liked giving blowjobs, how nice boys’ bodies were, their warm, heady smell, and Louis was no exception. It was unbelievable to actually taste Louis’ excitement, hear his throaty whimpers. His voice was even a few notches higher than usual, a frequency that probably could’ve brought Harry to orgasm by itself. At some point Louis reached down and dragged Harry upwards, murmuring “you’re going to drive me crazy, Jesus Christ Styles,” and then they were over the edge in tandem, their bodies cemented together, hot and sticky and haloed in sweat and ecstasy.

-

It was a warmish Tuesday afternoon when Harry found Olivia. He really was acquiring quite a knack for finding important things.

He was sitting in his favorite spot by the pond, a woody little nook a few feet off of the path where he liked to bring his tattered copy of Shadow of the Wind and a thermos of tea. Sometimes, when he was especially overwhelmed by the fact that Louis made him feel so light and untethered that it seemed like he was probably missing a few vital organs, reading was the only way Harry could bring himself back to the ground. He was thoroughly absorbed, so absorbed that it took a few minutes to realize the sound of tearful whimpers playing through his mind actually did exist outside of the world of his head. He put the book down and stood up slowly, unfolding his long legs and arching his back in a luxurious stretch. The crying didn’t stop, though, so he peered out of the little grove until he caught sight of a small body huddled right up against the pebbly edge of the pond.

He approached cautiously and sat down beside the little figure, which turned its head to reveal a red, teary-eyed face. It was a girl, probably four or five years old, her damp eyes rimmed in shockingly long lashes and her little bow mouth stuck in a trembling pout.

“Hey,” Harry said quietly, “what’s your name, sweetheart?”

The girl surveyed him for a moment, the warnings against strangers she’d heard playing visibly across her features, but she was clearly worn out from crying and her desire for sympathy overrode what she’d been told. “Olivia,” she sniffed in a small voice, then “and I need help please.”

“Of course,” Harry agreed, then asked the most obvious question he could think of: “where’s your mom or dad? Are you alone?” Olivia’s dark eyes filled with tears in answer to the question, so Harry quickly shifted tactics. “Do you, by any chance, like cupcakes?” he asked, “because I think we could probably find your parents and cupcakes all in one go.” He stood, waiting patiently for her to join, which she did reluctantly, standing up to fully reveal her dirty tutu and the small Thomas the Tank Engine she had clutched in one hand. “I love trains!” Harry said.

Olivia looked down at it woefully, than back up to Harry, and it appeared he had set off some kind of trigger. “It’s my brother’s,” she said, “and I lost him. I lost everyone,” she cried, and promptly sat down again with a small whimper. Harry took a deep breath, realizing the scope of what he could be dealing with. His instinct was crying out for him to pick her up, smooth her damp cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, but he realized that should her parents suddenly appear, it would make for a fairly damning picture. So instead he coaxed her up again, and walked next to her all the way back to the bakery underneath his flat. There he enlisted Carolyn, the woman who worked behind the counter and liked to sneak him free croissants, to call the police, while he treated Olivia to a red velvet cupcake (to her delight) and amused her by enacting elaborate train crashes between Thomas and the salt and pepper shakers.

It took less than 20 minutes for a tall, harried woman to come busting through the front door of the bakery, a small boy clutched against her hips and a look of hope mingled with panic etched into her pretty face. She caught sight of Harry and Olivia and her eyes, Olivia’s eyes, filled with tears in a strange copy of what Harry had seen the girl’s do a short time earlier.

Their reunion was sweet, clear relief on everyone’s part, Olivia crying “Theo!” and attaching herself to her brother’s small foot, their mother (Harry assumed) laughing and crying and holding Olivia’s face between her hands in between strong admonitions of “never again!”

“Theo,” Olivia said after a few moments, “I even held on to Thomas for you,” and only then did everyone remember Harry was there, sitting at the counter with the train and its obstacle course in front of him.

“Thank you, thank you thank you thank you,” the woman said, then introduced herself as Melissa and her son as Theo, who Harry connected with immediately over his Batman shirt ("I know someone who would love that!"). He insisted that they all sit down, then bought Melissa coffee and Theo and Olivia both hot chocolates. He hadn’t felt so necessary, so elemental to the course of someone’s life in a long time, and it was a heady feeling. He could see in Melissa’s face, her relieved laughter and the way she looked at him from underneath her fringe, that he was settling into his favorite brand of charm like a comfortable winter coat, one long forgotten in a dusty closet. And then, 20 minutes later, he had himself a job. Melissa’s husband was living in Ireland for a year for work and her nanny had just moved to Portugal, which had set the circumstances for the disaster of that afternoon. She seemed convinced that Harry was exactly who she needed, helped along by the fact that at the end of the conversation, Harry was balancing both Theo and Olivia on his lap, the three year old snuggled against him, his eyes fluttering, clearly worn out from the warm hot chocolate and the excitement, and for some reason, this woman chose to trust him. It made him feel warm like hot chocolate never could.

“Can you start tonight?” Melissa asked, “I’m sure you have somewhere to be and I know it’s a total shot in the dark but I agreed to go to this dinner and I’m really just desperate at this point.” Actually, Harry didn’t have somewhere to be, except probably underneath Louis without any pants on, and he was seriously running low on money. It was an unbelievably ideal situation.

The McClearys lived in a small, cozy flat within walking distance of Harry’s, decorated by lovely little paintings (Melissa’s, it turned out) and extensive wooden train tracks. Harry made beans and weenies, his favorite meal as a kid, and then gave Olivia and Theo a bath, marveling at their small, compact bodies, and Olivia’s vocabulary - did most 5-year-olds know how to properly use “extensive” in a sentence? - and the way Theo called his stuffed duck The Quack. He really likedbeing with the kids, he felt goofy and inventive and thoughtful and so much more grounded than he could remember feeling for a long time. He actually dozed off while reading to Olivia, and when Melissa came home she was greeted to the sight of her new nanny, all curly hair and strong forearms and quiet self assurance, stretched out in Theo’s tiny bed, her son curled into him like planets towards the sun.

-

“Attaboy!” was Niall’s response, “I think you mean manny” was Zayn’s, and “are the kids cute?” was Liam’s (his eyes were darker these days since Niall and Zayn were together). Louis just looked at Harry with an expression that made Harry’s stomach curl up pleasantly like paper over a flame. He told them the whole story, beginning with finding Olivia by the pond, exaggerating his heroism only a little and becoming more and more conscious as he spoke of the serendipity of the whole thing. He had already spent a whole day with Olivia and Theo, building an obstacle course through the entire flat and making messy but delicious banana smoothies. It was so good to have a focus and purpose again, a shape to his days that extended beyond reading and wandering and trying to hold himself together by his fingertips because _Louis Louis Louis._

Later, laying in Louis’ bed in the glow from his squirrel night light, after an hour of kissing that made Harry forget his birthday and where he was and which limbs were even his, he told Louis stories about the kids. Louis traced distracting patterns across his collarbones while Harry talked. He told him how Theo had just learned that his real name was actually Theodore and thought that everyone’s name worked the same way, so for a full day Harry had been Harrydore and Olivia Livdore. He explained that Olivia had showed him how to peel bananas from the opposite side because that was the way monkeys do it, and how Theo had fallen asleep with a small hand fisted into Harry’s shirt.

It was clearly too much something for Louis to handle, because at some point he shut Harry up with a kiss and murmured “I wish you could see your face when you talk about them” against his lips. They stripped each other slowly after that, although neither of them were wearing much, tasting meringue and comfort in each others’ skin. It was slow and lovely, Harry moving between Louis’ legs at a luxurious pace afforded to him by his newly rediscovered ease and playfulness. He nipped along Louis’ hipbones, teased his tongue up the insides of his thighs, drawing animalistic noises from his partner that only served to encourage him. He felt something building inside of him, something teasing and eager, and he took Louis to the edge over and over, sitting back on his haunches in between goes with a wolfish grin and watching Louis writhe on the bed below him, snarling at Harry that he was _the absolute worst_ and then spilling over his stomach with such ferocity that Harry felt he should probably put it on his resume.

-

Harry started bringing Louis along with him to the McClearys, usually on Wednesdays and Fridays when Louis didn’t have work at the bookstore. He’d been introduced to Melissa as Harry’s “good friend,” but the shimmer in her eyes when she gave him a thorough look-over told Harry she wasn’t fooled in the slightest. Still, she and Theo and Olivia were more than happy to have him as a part of their routine, and Harry had to fight from getting jealous when Theo ignored him for a piggyback from Louis or when Olivia sat in Louis’ lap first when they were reading bedtime stories. The kids were having a particularly rough time missing their dad, and they attached themselves to Louis and Harry like little koalas.

The days that Louis came along were some of the strangest and loveliest in Harry’s memory. He was split between the anchor that the kids provided him with, the solidity of their routine and their neediness and their hot, heavy bodies attached to his own, and the unsettling feeling that Louis gave him, like his limbs and organs were trying to float away from each other, unable to stay put due to the sheer intensity of his affection.

There were, of course, terrible days, days when Harry was actually earning his keep. There was the time Olivia accidentally ripped off one of her fingernails between wooden slats on the play structure, a snotty, bloody, mess, the sight of which made Theo cry even harder than his sister. There was the night that they both ran 102 degree fevers and after a few false alarms threw up into Harry and Louis’ hands several times before finally falling into exhausted, sweaty sleep. There was the time Harry spent 40 minutes talking Melissa out of a panic over needing her absent husband while Louis magically distracted the kids.

Most of the time, however, Harry felt like he was getting paid for doing no work at all. He and the kids made ants on a log (celery with peanut butter and raisins), Louis sneaking wet kisses to the back of his neck behind the refrigerator door while they were distracted by the messy snacks. They laid on the floor of the living room in a messy sprawl, entranced by the scratchy sound of their dad’s classical record collection. Theo’s favorite was Symphony No. 17 in C Minor by William Herschel, during which he would, without fail, slip a small thumb into his mouth and the other hand into Harry’s broad, soft one. As the fall deepened, the days turning into Harry’s favorite kind, so crisp they had to be bitten into to be fully enjoyed, they found as many carefully constructed leaf piles as possible, jumping into them and then hastily using their hands and scarves to try and piece them back together and failing completely.  
The nights after Harry and Louis babysat together quickly became Harry’s favorite. Louis was transformed into a beast driven both by his paternal instincts and the apparently primal lust inspired in him by watching Harry with Theo and Olivia. It was kind of a hilarious contrast, actually, one moment fixing Harry tea and petting his hair, the next sucking the skin along his collarbone raw with kisses.

It was one of these nights in late October, nearly six months after they had fallen into this tornado of kissing and pining and occasional late night cigarettes on the window nook, that they took a final untouched and unspoken of step in their relationship.

It began on the couch, watching Doctor Who reruns on BBC, Harry trying to focus because it was Rose and she was his favorite companion and Louis’ tongue and determination were not making it easy. They weren’t alone in the apartment, which was a real shame, as within a surprisingly short period Louis had the television on mute and Harry on his back, biting savagely on the skin between his thumb and forefinger to keep from crying out. Louis was insistent, which was unsurprising, the thin layers of their sweatpants doing little except increasing the friction between them as Louis bore his pelvis down against Harry’s. It was clear to Harry they were headed down a path of little or no resistance, so heeding his own advice to Zayn and Niall, he succeeded in pushing Louis off of him and murmuring “bed” in a voice that hardly resembled his own.

They stumbled through the hall, blinded by lust and the heat behind their eyes. Harry had barely landed on the bed before Louis shucked Harry’s sweatpants off of his hips, not bothering to take them completely down, and was sucking Harry off, humming as he did so. It sounded to Harry like a ferocious mix of contentment and desire and something unfathomably primal, like Louis was performing an act coded into his DNA. His hands were everywhere, across Harry’s chest, squeezing his ass, playing across his sheeny skin like a harp while his mouth worked Harry into a frenzy of need.

And then he stopped. He stopped and looked at Harry, his eyes glazed in trust and intimacy and want, and then he shimmed upwards, planting an uncharacteristically chaste kiss on Harry’s lips. “Do you think that you can hold off for a bit?” he asked, smoothing a thumb down the slope of Harry’s nose and dipping it into his mouth. Harry nodded. He could feel how wide his eyes were as he grazed his teeth across the tip of Louis’ thumb, his heart cantering along at a rate matched only by his ragged breathing.

“Good, because I want -” and then Louis paused, swallowing the end of the sentence back down with a gulp, his face looking both a little scared and unbearably hopeful. Harry knew exactly what Louis meant, and suddenly, like an actual shift had occurred, he was in charge. He knew that Louis wasn’t new to sex, but from what very little he understood about the situation, it hadn’t been great before. Where Louis was still tentative and exploring, Harry was confident, seasoned, more in tune with his body and how it could make other people feel good great unbelievable than he was with his own thoughts most of the time.

He lifted himself on top of Louis, sitting astride him and drinking in the golden hue of his skin like a shot, actually feeling it burn and tango its way down his throat. It was like he was taking Louis by the hand, which he actually did, interlacing their fingers at some point and then unable to let go, leading him through slowly, sweetly, fiercely. They breathed in tandem, gasping as their bodies connected in the most intimate and tangible of ways, Harry moving his hips with as much control as he could muster until it was no longer about control. It was about sweat and eagerness and fumbling hands and Harry felt like he was maybe learning something too in the crackle between their bodies and the wrinkle between Louis’ eyebrows as he came, his whole body rippling and swelling and bringing Harry along with it, reduced to a bundle of nerves and dampness and sensations that could’ve replaced the dictionary definition of “ecstasy.”

They fell asleep with their hands still fused together.

-

Louis came to see him the next day at work, Harry and the kids finger painting at the kitchen table. Louis’ eyes carried the heady knowledge of what they had done in them, a lens which caught Harry up giddily until he looked beyond it and realized something was wrong.

He turned on an episode of Sesame Street after a too-long process of washing hands during which the lump in his stomach grew as he imagined all of the things that could be shaking Louis up. He walked behind Louis into the kitchen, glad that the tensed shoulders didn’t seem to be directed at him. When they were out of sight, Louis said “first things first” and slid his tongue along Harry’s teeth, sending a flurry of shivers through Harry like little wings. Then he pulled back, his face more serious, and said “I’m pretty sure that Liam is in love with Zayn,” and Harry heard him with an unrelenting certainty, a sureness fueled by the darkness in Liam’s eyes recently and the defeat that had settled itself against his wrists, the curve of his neck.

They tried together to distract Liam after that, hyper conscious of trying to keep him from feeling like a fifth wheel when they were together, but Niall and Zayn were oblivious, caught up in a world of teasing and lap-sitting and getting themselves caught in compromising positions against every wall in the apartment. They seemed stunned when Liam announced that he was going away for Christmas, home to visit his mum and dad for a whole month, but Harry was caught off guard by a snag in Zayn, a hitch in his protests that told Harry Zayn wasn’t so ignorant as Louis believed.

The five of them got outrageously drunk the night before Liam’s departure, drunker than Harry had been since the first night he had spent with Louis. There were a few tears, a lot of playful wrestling and some kisses that potentially crossed the lines of various relationships. Niall was sweet, unable to stop talking and petting Liam, his face woeful at the thought of his friend departing. Liam, the soberest of them all, grudgingly sat through their gushing affection, even letting Zayn place drunken kisses along the even line of his jaw with a tortured look on his face. Louis pulled Zayn aside for some fierce whispering and Harry took his own turn with Liam, curling his lean frame into Liam’s lap and feeling an ugly sadness spread through him at the thought of not having Liam’s solid presence within a few feet of him for a long time. He rested his head against Liam’s neck, thinking and rethinking before finally tilting his chin just enough to give Liam a little kiss against his stubble. Liam responded by tightening his arms around Harry and murmuring “you’re the best of the best, I’ll miss you, keep Louis alive while I’m gone.” Harry thought that, in some strange, barren world where Louis didn’t exist, he would happily stay ensconced in the sweet shield of Liam’s arms for a long while, and maybe probably happily be kissing him on a more serious schedule. He sort of felt that way about all of them. But then Louis was back and it was somehow 4 am and Liam had to get a full night’s sleep, so Harry easily forgot about his alternate world and let Louis take him to a much more real and unbearably good place.

-

Liam was gone early the next morning, so early that no one else was even awake to help him load up the cab. Harry shot up at 9:30 on the dot, strangely without any kind of hangover, feeling like a little of the comfort of the apartment had been lost, like a cup of tea that had sat out for too long. He knew Liam had gone but he couldn’t help slipping out of bed anyway, padding down the hallway in Louis’ favorite purple socks until he’d reached the door at the very end. He stood in front of it for a moment, thinking about how goddamn good Liam was, how much he’d suffered through the last few weeks without being petulant or selfish or acting out in the slightest. Harry knew that, were he in Liam’s position, he would not have handled the situation with such grace, turning sour and probably trying to simultaneously shrink back within himself and lash out for any kind of affection he could find. He’d been there before, and it was like being placed in the middle of a tropical storm, yet, of course, Liam had borne it silently like the lovable St. Bernard he was.

Harry turned at last, leaving the door untouched, not interested in what was on the other side so long as it was Liam-less. He slid quietly back down the hall and back into bed, his body easily finding the warm nest it had left behind against Louis’ side. One of Lou’s eyes opened for just a moment as the mattress creaked, and Harry’s whispered “Liam’s gone” before tucking his chin against the curve of Louis’ shoulder. Lou turned his head to meet Harry, who kissed him on the tip of the nose before snuggling even closer, trying to ward off the cold December air of the apartment and the little hollow of missing nestled right behind his sternum where Liam should have been.

When they woke again a few hours later, it was clear that not everyone had gotten off without a hangover like Harry had. Even Louis was grumpier than usual, refusing to leave his room until he was wearing two sweaters and even more pairs of socks. At the last moment he also pulled on a scarf, cutting off the comment waiting to trip out of Harry’s mouth with a singular look before shuffling groggily to the kitchen. Niall and Zayn were curled together on the couch, half asleep watching reruns. Niall was tucked up against Zayn’s chest, seated comfortably between his legs, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder if he and Louis looked as lovely when they were with each other, like their bodies were designed to fit together just so.  
“Morning!” Harry said brightly, smiling at Niall and Zayn’s sleepy, disgruntled faces.

“He’s disgustingly chipper,” Louis offered sullenly, “and I’m not speaking to him for it,” he added, but he leaned sideways just enough to kiss Harry’s shoulder and give him a small smile.

“I hope that means he’s making breakfast,” Niall said, “because I could eat the population of several small countries right now.” Harry wrinkled his nose at the phrase but Zayn only reached up to tug on a lock of Niall’s hair, murmuring “I love it when you talk cannibalism to me.”

“Sickening,” observed Louis, and then he pulled Harry into the kitchen and put him to work.

-

On one bitterly cold day in mid December, the sky a kind of dark grey which Harry imagined whales might be, he was snuggled on the McCleary’s couch between Theo and Olivia, trying to figure out why he was so distracted. They’d made hot apple cider together as a snack and were watching the Disney Robin Hood, but Harry realized halfway through he hadn’t absorbed any of the movie so far. He tried to identify the feeling that was solidifying itself in the pit of his belly, hardening like a loaf of bread going stale and beginning to seriously demand his attention. The answer didn’t occur to him until that evening, however, curled up in bed with Clive, when he realized it was panic, the kind of slow, creeping panic that was absolutely crippling if left untreated.

The next few days grew steadily worse, as Harry thought himself in circles, only exacerbating the issue as he tried to figure out where on earth it had come from. The McClearys took a weekend trip to visit Melissa’s mom, and being left schedule-less compounded everything to the point that Harry felt breathless, like he was underwater, almost blind with discomfort and irritation with himself. Finally, Louis grew concerned enough to bring it up, draped over Harry’s lap like a blanket one evening on the Basecamp couch.  
“Harry,” he started tentatively, “can you please tell me what’s wrong?”

And then something inside of Harry spilled over. Two days of suppressed panic suddenly lodged itself in his throat, underneath his tongue, in the webbing between his fingers, triggered by the care in Louis’ voice and the fact that he justdidn’t know. He couldn’t even unhinge his jaw to speak, sure that if he did, he would cry, scream, fly apart at the seams. One hot tear foraged an ambitious trail down Harry’s cheek just as Louis looked up at him expectantly, and Lou’s face quickly pulled into one of clear concern. He scrambled up to his knees, wiping the salty tear away with a gentle swipe from his thumb before pulling Harry’s head, suddenly damp with sweat, against his chest, stroking his hair and murmuring reassuring tidbits into Harry’s curls.

Finally, when Harry could breathe again, he drew back, feeling Louis relax against him. “Harry,” Lou said quietly, but Harry couldn’t look at him, until Lou took his chin with soft fingers and tuned his head. “Please talk to me,” Louis said, “please, please, I hate you being like this.”

“I don’t actually know what’s wrong,” Harry said finally, chuckling weakly, reveling in the sensation of Louis’ comforting heat pressed up against his side like he was trying to absorb the dark whatever it was that had settled into the curves of Harry’s body.

“You’re worrying me, love,” Louis said. “I don’t want to go home for Christmas with you like this.”

And there it was. In a matter of moments the answers unfolded themselves inside of Harry, a rippling of understanding that made him shiver hotly. This was going to be his first Christmas alone. Alone, without any kind of family, without Louis (he wasn’t sure whether that was better or worse than the thought of spending it with Lou’s parents and sisters), without even Theo and Olivia. His favorite holiday and he was going to be alone in a cold flat, floundering in memories and thumbed over photographs and some kind of insidious self-loathing that was already calcifying in his bones. He hated how much this had affected him without his even realizing it, knowing that his own usually rock-solid cheer wouldn’t be enough to buoy him through mental images of Louis surrounded by the kind of love that only family provides, which exhausted him to even imagine. His mouth tasted gritty, like bitterness and salt and something that felt an awful lot like the knife edge of anger.

Louis followed the shift in Harry’s face, tracing his features with bright eyes, and seemed to put it together just as quickly as Harry had, silently and uncannily understanding. He slid his hands under the hem of Harry’s sweater and said “come with me?”, and when Harry shook his head he pressed his fingers into the skin of Harry’s stomach so hard Harry’s felt branded, tattooed with both acknowledgement and some kind of apology.

Zayn and Niall came in a few minutes later, the two of them somehow squeezing comfortably into the arm chair meant for one, a tangle of limbs and clashing hair and skin that seemed to melt together. They both appraised the situation, a question sitting heavy in Niall’s face, but Zayn’s quiet hand against his hip kept him quiet. They were a good team, distracting Harry and each other with a running narration of the America’s Next Top Model episode that was muted on the TV (“We should take shots whenever Tyra talks about her past modeling experiences,” Zayn suggested, and “fine, but I’m not holding your hair when you puke after the first six minutes” was Niall’s response, accompanied by a kiss to the bridge of Zayn’s nose). Louis kept quiet, smiling at his friends and cementing himself to Harry with a fierce kind of love that seemed to radiate from the palms of his hands.

-

That night was different for Harry, new in a way he’d never felt before. He was asking for something from Louis, pleading with his hips and the flutter of his eyelashes and the scrape of his teeth against the soft skin in the crease of Louis’ elbow.

Everything about Louis seemed to be a reassurance. It radiated out from him, a kind of fierce determination to make Harry feel wanted, wanted in the fingers Lou slid inside of him, the whisper of his tongue against Harry’s salty skin. Harry would’ve resented it if he hadn’t needed it so much, so much that he was almost violent in response. It turned rough, gritty, like tires on a gravel path, Harry moaning and scratching and rutting against Louis desperately. He fell into a sweaty sleep almost immediately, oblivious to Louis gently tracing the curve of his ear for hours afterwards, unable to keep his hands from Harry’s tense and unhappy body.

-

Harry sometimes thought about how, every morning, he woke up with no way to fathom what the next hours, even minutes, would hold. How events could traipse along behind the sun like a trail of airplane exhaust during the course of a single day, setting and settling down into his life and changing its direction entirely. How maybe that was always the path his life was meant to take, but it was the kind of journey during which he wasn’t meant to see where he was going until his feet were firmly planted there. But, in that moment of awakening, hovered on the line between sleep and alertness, the knife-edge of focus and blurry, sweet dreams, the day to come was entirely a mystery. And maybe that was a blessing.

-

Harry was not a morning person. He was when he was required to be, because Harry could be anything when it was required of him, but given the choice he was happy to stay warm and sleepy in the down nest of Louis’ bed, especially in the particular bitterness of December weather. Louis usually had work in the mornings and would disappear out of the flat, leaving the butterfly whisper of a kiss against the soft curls above Harry’s ears, waking him for an instant and imbuing the rest of his sleep with a sense of contentment that was better than any kind of blanket. He was tired these days, filled with a need for sleep that sapped him of energy quickly. He had never liked winter and figured it was a combination of that and the impending loss of Louis over the holiday which was allowing his body to sleep often and long and waking him up more exhausted than before with a kind of fierce, perpetual headache.

The day before Louis left to go home for Christmas, however, he woke Harry with a cup of tea and a chocolate croissant, a sneaky smile on his face that told Harry this was more than just breakfast in bed. “I called in sick to the bookstore,” Louis offered, and Harry raised an eyebrow, concerned mostly with trying to avoid covering the bed in flaky pastry crumbles and failing pretty thoroughly. Louis waited patiently for a solid half second before whining “don’t you wanna know why?” Harry smiled at him silently through a mouthful, knowing full well he was going to hear whether he asked for it or not. Louis was good at magically transforming into a six year old, an impatient one at that, and Harry loved the control it gave him in these moments.

“We’re taking Theo and Olivia on a field trip!!” Louis blurted, practically wagging his tail with excitement and self satisfaction. He danced around Harry as he got dressed, bouncing on his tiptoes and planting funny little kisses against the bones in Harry’s shoulders like maybe that would speed him up. Harry was thrilled, secretly, but riling Louis up was too much fun, so he went as slowly as possible, spending an infuriating amount of time debating which sweater to pull over his unruly curls and trying to find matching socks in Louis’ dresser, a centuries-long quest.

It turned out Louis had really done a stunning bit of planning. Melissa greeted the two of them at the door with a grin, a giant thermos of hot chocolate, and the car keys, handing over a wriggling set of kiddos who clearly were far more aware of the plan than Harry was. They took the van, Louis driving, Harry DJing, Theo and Olivia singing along to Graceland at the top of their small but powerful lungs (Harry had been slowly but surely weaning them onto Paul Simon as he was convinced it was the most important nutrient for growing bodies). They drove into the countryside for a long while, Louis clearly unable to keep the kind of smile off of his face that looked like it could’ve powered a small city with its wattage. 

When at last Louis pulled off of the road and parked, they spilled out of the artificially heated cocoon of the car to the bank of a small pond, frozen over and lovely, flashing in the sunlight and seeming to beam their excitement right back at them. Louis popped open the trunk and with the dramatic flourish of someone revealing masterpiece art presented Harry with a pair of gleaming ice skates. Harry felt like the smile he wore was probably breaking his face, but he couldn’t put it away, instead leaning forward to kiss Louis while Theo and Olivia giggled wildly, clearly both scandalized and enchanted. Louis met the kiss with a sudden calm, as if now that Harry understood what was happening he had regained a modicum of control and was ready to revel in the brilliance and sweetness of his plan. “My family and I came here every Christmas as a kid,” he offered, and Harry crinkled his eyes with the loveliness of it all, knowing Louis was sharing it with him very specifically. 

Olivia and Theo, it turned out, were master ice skaters. Next to them Harry felt like a colt learning to walk for the first time, sure that the blush of his cheeks was enough to keep all four of them warm against the bite of the air. Louis, of course, skated actual circles around them all. His green pants flashing by like the scales of some exotic fish, he stopped only occasionally to nibble the corner of Harry’s ear just as he was getting the hang of things and causing him to lose his balance spectacularly all over again as shivers wriggled their way down his spine. Olivia stuck close by, sometimes slipping her mittened hand into Harry’s own, sweetly giving him a sense of security, like the mere fact that he could easily cover her entire fist with his palm meant he was actually in some sort of control. Theo fell a few times, his facing clouding over for an instant before he picked himself up shakily, the small frame of his body wracked with determination to do it over, to do it better, to not cry. Harry marveled. He couldn’t help but touch their heads as they slid by him, enchanted that he was able to be a part of the lives of these small entities, their pale blonde curls made lovelier in the icy air, eyes glittering with tears from the wind and the glare of the sun. He wasn’t tired or achey for the first time in days, confirming his suspicion that he had been making himself sick only with worry and the threat of loneliness.

At some point Louis decided it was time for a treat, clamoring off of the slick surface of the pond and making his way clumsily towards the car. Harry watched him go, feeling his body physically grow colder the further away Louis was, wondering if he would be able to do anything for the next week but stay curled into the smell and comfort of Louis’ bed like a hibernating squirrel until his return. Wondering, also, if he wanted to.

The moments immediately after those thoughts defied the laws of any world which Harry knew. Time seemed to slow, stretch out like saltwater taffy, punctuated only by the sounds of cracking, tearing, errupting, the world coming apart at a seam, breaking with itself in a massive and unruly display of unrest. It was eternity in the space of a heart beat, the fluttering of eyelashes, like the world was being filmed from a dark space behind Harry’s eyes, directed by panic and terrifying calm in equal measures. He turned without turning, moved without moving, saw the ice cracking and choking apart and the descent of Theo’s body through cataracts of undiluted horror. Suddenly his own clumsiness wasn’t so laughable, the skates on his feet were shackles, Olivia’s screams slow and torturous and unbearable.

Afterwards, Harry couldn’t have explained what happened next had his life depended on it. Louis watched from his place frozen beside the car, close enough but a million years away, as Harry fell to his stomach and slid towards the hole in the ice, bleeding fear and determination, his arms reaching for anything they could find. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because where was Theo. He hadn’t surfaced, wouldn’t, no matter how hard Louis willed the blonde crown of his head to appear in the diamond crusted surface of the water.  
And then Harry was in, Louis choking on his own yell and saliva, suddenly propelled forward and gasping at Olivia to get off of the ice, heading as close to the edge of the hole as he could. Years passed in the seconds before Harry appeared, sputtering and clutching Theo’s small body, his eyes glazed in something that Louis couldn’t identify but which terrified him nonetheless. Louis was momentarily riveted to the way Harry’s eyelashes were clumped together, glittering with ice and the kind of beauty that builds from sheer terror. Louis got down on his stomach, and by some superhuman and adrenaline infused power between the two of them, he and Harry managed to get both bodies out of the water and across the tundra of space between them and the car.

Louis knew the hospital was only a few minutes away, and he drove like he had never driven before, his focus razor sharp as he monitored the icy road, Harry’s uncontrollable shivers, Olivia whimpering as she pressed her body against her brother, breathing shallowly, his eyes fluttering in a horrible parody of sleep. Harry was speaking nonsense to the two of them, cradling Theo’s head in his ridiculously large and trembling hands, trying to keep himself and Theo awake through the weight of panic and the warm lure of sleep that was seducing him. Theo was by far the worst off, his small body affected by the icy plunge far more than Harry. 

Both were admitted to the hospital and stabilized, to everyone's relief. Melissa appeared, remarkably under control, every inch a mom, delivering hugs and a sense of security that Louis wanted to inhale. She took his face between her hands and said “this is not your fault” and it was too much, Louis finally unclenching his muscles and trembling so hard Melissa’s grip was the only thing keeping him standing. She sent him to lay down with Harry, awake but severely shaken, eyes wide in an attempt to take in so much of the present world that he couldn’t see any of the events of the morning. Olivia snuck in a little while later to deliver the news that Theo was definitely ok, but would be staying overnight to ensure he wasn’t developing pneumonia or other cold-related complications. Harry was sure he would be the same but waited patiently for the doctor, focused only on the fact that Theo was fine, he was fine he was fine he was fine. Olivia burrowed between them on the bed, letting her warmth and comfort seep through Louis and Harry via the palms of her delicate hands. 

When the doctor appeared, ghostlike, in the doorway of Harry’s room a little while later, ostensibly back with test results and good news, Louis had fallen asleep, the edges of his body fastening themselves to Harry around the anchor of Olivia, also asleep and clutched to Harry like a koala, whuffling out reassuring little breaths. He had been playing with her hair, the soft strands through his fingers a sensory distraction that he could attach to with blurry focus, like corn silk in his hands, feeling like the only thing he could trust himself with believing in. 

And when the doctor was at the edge of his bed, Harry registered the darkness on her face with a weird sense of peace, sure that whatever the news was for him he could handle it, he’d welcome something to put stock in instead of the exhausting task of not remembering anything from Theo’s accident. They needed to do blood tests? Okay. There was some concern? Okay. Theo was fine, Harry was prepared for anything.

-

But, bacterial meningitis. Undiagnosed for too long, probably from contaminated food, the reason he had been so tired and out of sorts. And, more than that, consuming him at an unusual pace, symptoms having remained veiled like a malicious and secretive vendetta under his skin. It meant the sickness was at a stage wherein it was a serious threat, now catalyzed impossibly further by the shock to his immune system from the cold water, leaving him nauseous and seriously ill, teetering on a precipice of something terrifying and dark and unfathomable. No. No, Harry wasn’t prepared for that. 

**Now**

Sometimes, as he drifts in and out of a tentative consciousness, Harry can remember a time before Louis. If he lets his eyes slide out of focus, tugs coaxingly on the smeared, blurry edges that hang just out of sight in the corners of his eyes, he can snag the memories until all at once they slide down and settle out, rippling like little ridges of lake water. But he isn’t particularly sure he likes doing it. These memories run with crackles down the middle, scratches on the tape, lacking the sharp relief that his more recent recollections are thrown into under the supervision of Louis’ dazzling grin. In fact, Harry realizes now, his life can be divided cleanly in two, a halved sort of existence defined in terms of Before and After Louis. Occasionally the thought occurs to him that really, it is as if he has lived two separate lives entirely. He knows he became a wholly different person upon Louis’ loud and gangly entrance, tripping in from stage left like the cacophony he is. But that kind of admission is hard, and Harry still wants to believe that he can exist on his own, not feel as though he has a vital organ operating outside of his own body. Or, more importantly, he wants to believe that Louis can do the same, because it matters now. Or it will matter soon, this particular kind of independence. 

Sometimes, Harry can remember that time before Louis. Sometimes, he’d rather not. He closes his eyes and lets Louis’ face take up the whole screen behind his eyelids, steady, warm, unflinching. Sometimes.

-

It feels melodramatic, but Harry is certain he has forgotten what fresh air tastes like. It’s only been four days in the hospital, four days of jello and telenovelas and Louis stretched out next to him on the flimsy mattress, face lined with worry. Harry told him once, on the second day, that it wasn’t his fault, that if anything Louis had saved him by getting him medical attention in time. But Louis had been asleep at the time, because Harry knew he wouldn’t have heard a word of it if he were awake, and maybe this way it could sink into his consciousness by osmosis. 

Liam has come back early from his parents’, spending his days rotating between work and the hospital room, his eyes heavy with concern. Because, it turns out, Harry really isn’t doing well. He’s developed pneumonia on top of the meningitis, he can barely eat, he’s exhausted. He loves seeing Niall and Zayn when they came, hands tucked lazily into each others’ pockets though unable to disguise shoulders bent with worry, but he keeps feeling like he should be chastised, loyal friends bearing down on a boyfriend who hurt one of their own. They seem to think his own body is already hurting him enough. 

The doctor comes in as Lou dozes beside him, and Harry knows before he speaks that the news isn’t good. He can feel it in his feverish limbs, the unhealthiness that has settled across his lanky frame. “We’re going to try one more drug to turn things around,” the doctor says, pressed a large warm hand into Harry’s shoulder in a manner that is meant to be comforting but just feels like one more thing shackling him to this white, starchy bed.

When Louis snuffles awake, his features settling into guilt before he’s even opened his eyes, a wearying look that Harry wants to smooth away with his palms, Harry has a plan. This drug might be his last hope, and he doesn’t want Louis there, stressing and pacing and doing his best not to touch Harry too much, not to transmit his own deep unease. So when Liam and Zayn and Niall arrive to pull Louis out of the room, Harry puts on his glimmeriest smile. It doesn’t fit quite right anymore, like his charm is all out of fuel, but he must do a convincing enough job because Louis allows himself to be taken away after pressing only 13 or so feverish kisses across Harry’s face. Harry can feel the love in them, the sorry, the comfort, and he lets that carry him through the installation of the new IV and into a dreamless sleep. His last coherent thought is that maybe an end wouldn’t be so bad if happened like this.

Waking up in his body these days is like trying to haul himself over a cliff edge, and when Harry comes to around at 4 am, he feels less and less inclined to make the final effort. But he does, and he realizes he’s being shaken awake by a nurse, who’s beaming. This is good this is really good this means he’s ok and he can breathe and he hasn’t even realized how fucking terrified he was, terrified for himself and for Louis and for wanting to watch Theo and Olivia grow up and for not existing anymore in the only world he knows. Relief seeps through him like honey, like water after a thaw, like the godawful jello that definitely won’t be the last thing he eats. It’s really ok, it is, and then

Liam

Liam is there

Crying, sobbing, there is snot and hiccups and Niall and Zayn are right behind him and Zayn’s face is colorless and there are words

Words like “drunk, we got him so drunk and it was lovely he was ok for a few minutes”

Words like “he snuck out after we fell asleep he promised he wouldn’t but he didn’t want you to wake up without him”

Words like “the car didn’t have lights on”

Words like “oh God oh God ohgodohgodohgodgodgod oh my fucking God”

And all Harry can think is: here it is, here is the Hurricane Louis which Niall promised him so long ago.

-

Louis is never supposed to wake up again. There had been a lot of words after that, big words right from a medical encyclopedia, but Harry hadn't really heard anything past that fact. He is never supposed to giggle at Harry’s clumsiness, stretch while he yawns so that a strip of his perpetually-golden stomach is exposed, rub a licked-wet thumb across Harry’s earlobe, or fix him a cup of burning hot tea, or flip Olivia upside down while Theo hangs from his neck laughing wildly, or skate his way across the expanse of Harry’s body, which belongs to Louis as much as his own does. Harry hates the bandages on him that keep their skin from touching, the veiny blue of Louis’ eyelids that keep him unseeing. He wants to bargain with someone, feels like this is beyond unfair. His life was the one teetering on an edge, and why on earth would Louis’ replace his own on that precipice just as he was getting better? 

Harry spends one afternoon in Louis’ room at Basecamp, screaming. The apartment is empty except for Clive, terrified and burrowed into Harry’s side as he lays facedown in the bedding, trying to suffocate himself on his own horror and panic the heady smell of Louis that lay in heaps across the sheets. He screams until his throat is raw, until the other three come home from their various outings to find him weeping, his hair damp with tears from laying on his side, his chest blotchy and heaving, the sheets snotty and pulled off of the corners. Harry sees them and loathes himself: Louis is their friend too, they love him just as much and have for longer, but when he tries to speak he only wants to scream again. Zayn disappears silently and then reappears with the phonebook and a stack of old Sports Illustrated magazines, and at their confused glances demonstrates his intent by taking a handful of pages and tearing right through them.

They sit on Louis’ bed together, the four of them, Harry’s sniffles the only sound besides ripping as they tear through the stack, growing more violent and wild and at some point Harry looks up and realizes they're all crying, Liam silent, Niall heaving big breaths in between whimpers, Zayn biting his lip so hard there are small pearls of blood appearing. They fall asleep like that, across crumpled paper and crumpled fear, fear of loss and the unknown and total lack of control.

-

When Louis does wake up, Harry knows he is never going to imagine a time without Louis ever again. There won’t be one, he decides, so there’s no reason to imagine it, and when Louis looks at him for the first time in 17 days he tastes it, tastes blood and love and his whole world in a golden, soft, lovely, _healing_ boy.


End file.
